La Légende du Bonhomme Misère: La Mort dans le Poirier (The Legend of Goodman Misery: Death in the Pear Tree). Etching in brown ink on off-white paper; 9 x 6 inches (22.8 x 15.2 cm) – image size
The theme of death figures prominently in Legros’s etchings. While Legros did a number of images of confrontations with death, this etching is not what it at first seems to be. The etching shows Death in a pear tree stealing fruit while an elderly man looks up at him in astonishment. The legend of the Bonhomme Misère is derived from a French folk tale. The peasant, Misère, has as his only valued possession a pear tree. One evening he gives lodging to two mysterious travelers, Peter and Paul. In return they grant him the rather odd gift that whomever climbs into his pear tree will be stuck there. When Death approaches, the old man inveigles him into the tree, where he is forced to stay, and thus Misère (misery or poverty) remains forever among the living. The circular structure in the background is a device used in rock quarrying in the nineteenth century.
This etching was first published by Alfred Cadart in a small edition in 1877 and was later published by Philip Gilbert Hamerton in Etching and Etchers, London, third edition, 1880. Hammerton noted about this work: “The best piece of execution that M. Legros has hitherto produced is Le Bonhomme Misère, and this is conceived rather like an old woodcut; however, it is a thoroughly fine piece of work in every way, and shaded and bitten in most perfect harmony with the subject. The mental qualities of this artist’s work are always nobly serious, and must seem strangely so to those who believe in the universal levity of the French temperament…M. Legros has chosen the moment when Death is up in the pear-tree holding out the pear in his skeleton fingers, and old Misery is looking up at him. The imaginative conception of the whole scene is worthy of some solemn-minded old northern master” (198).
Many of Legros's figure subjects were inspired by the artist's early impressions of French peasant life gained while still a boy. Influences upon his art in this area of his work may be traced to Courbet and the art of Goya and the Spanish School. While Holbein and other Northern masters of the Renaissance may have also influenced his work in this vein, Legros's treatment of this subject is all his own.
Bibliography
Hammerton, Philip G.: Etchers and Etching, Third Edition. London: Macmillan and Co., 1880.
Holroyd, Charles and Thomas Okey. “Alphonse Legros: Some Personal Reminiscences.” Burlington Magazine XX (February 1912): 272-276.
Created 18 November 2022